Baths with water buffaloes and elephants

While others boldly march on...
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Chiang Mai is in the north of Thailand, a mere 12 hour train ride from BKK. The train ride from BKK to CM was the first time on a train that served you breakfast, lunch and snacks! It really is similar to in-flight service that way.

The main reason for our visit to CM was an opportunity to do some outdoorsy stuff. It seems like our whole trip has been nothing but cities, some more glamorous and some quite dumpy, but all high density and high pollution. It was time to get out.

CM as a city did not impress us very much. Lots of day and especially night markets (must be the heat!), lots of wats( Thai temples) and tonnes of tourist agencies vying for the attention of the thousands of 'farang' (foreigners) that Thailand attracts.  Thailand is by far the most touristy destination we have visited.

The only wat we actually visited. We are quite templed out and had to force ourselves to go see at least one wat.
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We embarked on a three day hill tribes visit and trekking tour.  A number of tribes have established their homes in the hills of North of Thailand and some of which have become major tourist attractions. The most popular is the 'long-neck Karen' tribe ( which may be familiar to National Geographic buffs), as their major characteristic is the long necks of the women as a result of the multiple rings worn on their necks. Unfortunately for us, we didn't realize that there is more than one type of Karen tribe and the one included in our tour was NOT the long-neck Karen.

A reclining Buddha... not too often that you see that. It represents the Buddha's death and symbolizes complete peace and detachment from the world.
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Most of the tribes are made up of people whose origins aren't always clear though most seem to be from outside Thailand. The Karens are originally from Burma(Myanmar), Akha tribe from China and Tibet, Hmong from South China, Lahu an ethnic group of Southeast Asia also found in China, Vietnam, Laos and Burma. We visited three tribes: the Karen, Lahu and Akha tribes.

The tour was pretty much a combination of driving in the back of pickup van, hiking, elephant riding and bamboo rafting to get to our destinations.

Korak was approached by a Buddhist monk who was trying to understand some letter sent to him. Buddhism is taken really serious here and monks receive special treatment. For example, public transport has specially assigned seats for monks.
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The highlight of the trip was an almost 3 hour ride on elephants through forest and river to get to the next village. Sleeping in the villages was also quite the experience as accommodation was rustic and luxuries such as a shower nonexistent. One of the nights we had a shower in the river as after hiking in the heat you are covered in a nasty sweat, dust, sunscreen and bug repellant combo. Anyway had my soap, sponge, shampoo got into the muddy river at a spot that was considered prime only to find out the next day that we aren't the only smart ones. At that same exact spot was a herd of buffaloes cooling themselves in the water, people doing laundry, elephants playing in the water, anything you want. So how clean did I feel? Well pretty clean until I witnessed all that. It is quite easy to fool yourself when the evidence of what goes on is not in your face, couldn't avoid that this time. Oh well, I guess our immune system can only get stronger given all this exposure!

The temple style is quite different from what we saw in China...
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Needless to say we had a great time and I would do all that again in a heart beat(even showers in a river that water buffaloes and elephants do their 'business').